WinApi DrawText and TextOut cannot display unicode character U+5167

Question

Hello Windows Programmers!

I am new to windows programming using winapi. I was reading this very nice book and I encountered a problem(displayed as a black box) when I display unicode character U+5167 (內) in the client area using DrawText and TextOut. Mysteriously, this particular unicode character is properly displayed in windows caption area. This unicode character is also displaying correctly when I display it using the MessageBox. Finally, I tried displaying other unicode characters that are relatively near to this unicode like U+5166, U+5168, U+5157 and U+5177;

Here's a link for this unicode character as defined by the standards. http://unicode-table.com/en/#5167

Note : I am compiling this code using Unicode using Visual Studio 2010

Below is my code.

---

#include<windows.h>

LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM);

int WINAPI WinMain (HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, PSTR szCmdLine, int iCmdShow)
{
    static TCHAR szAppName[] = TEXT("HelloWin");
    HWND hwnd;
    MSG msg;

    WNDCLASS wndclass;
    wndclass.style = CS_HREDRAW | CS_VREDRAW;
    wndclass.lpfnWndProc = WndProc;
    wndclass.cbClsExtra = 0;
    wndclass.cbWndExtra = 0;
    wndclass.hInstance = hInstance;
    wndclass.hIcon = LoadIcon (NULL, IDI_APPLICATION);
    wndclass.hCursor = LoadCursor (NULL, IDC_ARROW);
    wndclass.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH) GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH);
    wndclass.lpszMenuName = NULL;
    wndclass.lpszClassName = szAppName;

    if(!RegisterClass (&wndclass))
    {
        MessageBox(NULL, TEXT("This program requires Windows NT!"), szAppName, MB_ICONERROR);
        return 0;
    }

    hwnd = CreateWindow(szAppName,
                            TEXT("內Sample text 內篇 日本国 渡瀬 內篇全兦兗具 кошка"),
                            WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
                            CW_USEDEFAULT,
                            CW_USEDEFAULT,
                            CW_USEDEFAULT,
                            CW_USEDEFAULT,
                            NULL,
                            NULL,
                            hInstance,
                            NULL);
    ShowWindow(hwnd, iCmdShow);
    UpdateWindow(hwnd);
    while(GetMessage(&msg, NULL, 0, 0))
    {
        TranslateMessage(&msg);
        DispatchMessage(&msg);
    }
    return msg.wParam ;
}

LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc (HWND hwnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
    HDC hdc;
    PAINTSTRUCT ps;
    RECT rect;
    LPTSTR c = TEXT("內Sample text 內篇 日本国 渡瀬 內篇全兦兗具 кошка");

    switch(message)
    {
        case WM_CREATE:
            PlaySound(TEXT("shutda.wav"), NULL, SND_FILENAME | SND_ASYNC);
MessageBox(hwnd, c, c, 0);
            return 0;
        case WM_PAINT:
            hdc = BeginPaint(hwnd, &ps);
            GetClientRect(hwnd, &rect);         
            DrawTextEx(hdc, c, -1, &rect, DT_SINGLELINE | DT_CENTER | DT_VCENTER, NULL);
            TextOut(hdc, 100, 100, TEXT("內篇 日本国 кошка unicode"), 19);
            EndPaint(hwnd, &ps);
            return 0;
        case WM_DESTROY:
            PostQuitMessage(0);
            return 0;
    }

    return DefWindowProc(hwnd, message, wParam, lParam);
}

---

For non windows programmers, you can compile and run this code by copy and pasting this directly to a .cpp file. If you are using VS2010, you just need to create new "Win32 Application" project and select "Empty Project". After that, you need to add a cpp file for example "test.cpp" in the source folder of your project. Then copy and past the code to the "test.cpp" then build and run it. You should now see my problem. :)

Answer 1

When a valid character is displayed as a rectangular box, that indicates that the font does not contain a glyph for the characters. In order to solve the problem you need to use a font which does have a glyph for this character.